The Cult Fame Variation
by kimberlypine
Summary: When Penny lands a major role in the new Star Trek movie, it changes things - but not in the ways she was expecting. Very AU.
1. 1:0

**Disclaimer: The Big Bang Theory is, unfortunately, not mine. If it were, Penny/Sheldon would definitely be a thing. Just saying. **

_Hey! So, since I'm in the UK, I'm not up to date on all the episodes, so can we maybe just assume knowledge up until maybe halfway through season five? Okay. Also, this is AU. Amy doesn't exist here. Yeah. The question you should be asking, my lovelies, is not "where's Amy?" but rather "who's Amy?" Call it an alternate timeline if you will. _

_Anyway, this story is split into two main parts. This is really something of a prologue for the first part, which is why it's so short. Anyway, without further ado, I present to you…_

**The Cult Fame Variation: Part One**

Subsection 0

The room is filled with girls who all look exactly like her.

She sighs, running a hand through her blonde hair. All the others are blonde, too, and young and white and American and preppy. She has to assume that, like her, most of them had once been cheerleaders, prom queens, popular girls. A hundred editions of her. She doesn't even have a chance.

She almost gets up to leave, but then they call her name. And what's the harm in trying, really?

They film her reading through part of the script, and with a bit of time left in her audition slot, they ask if she has any short monologues prepared. She launches into one that – she thinks it was Sheldon who suggested it to her. Yeah, she remembers. She was eating Chinese food with the guys, watching TV, and Sheldon had suddenly said _you could use that for your auditions, Penny_. He'd been right.

When she's done, one of the casting directors is staring at her so intently she's convinced he's about to get up, flip the table in anger, and demand that she leave and never, ever audition for anything ever again. But he doesn't. He leans forward, steepling his fingers, and says, "that was from Doctor Who."

She blushes a little. It wasn't a question, but she decides to answer anyway.

"Yeah."

"You're a science fiction fan?" The other people behind the table seem interested now, and this time it's a woman who speaks, raising an eyebrow.

_Less of a fan, more like unwillingly forced into watching it on a disturbingly regular basis_.

"You could say that." Penny isn't totally sure where this is going.

"Does that mean that you've watched _Star Trek_ before? The movies, any of the TV series?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I've pretty much seen it all. I went to the midnight release of the newest movie." This is true. Leonard and the guys dragged her along. Sheldon had offered to make her a Starfleet uniform. She had politely, but forcefully, refused his offer.

The casting people are exchanging looks. She's dismissed, with thanks and a promise to get in touch.

_Yeah, right._ She's heard that one before.

XXX

A call back.

She has a call back?

She has a serious chance of getting a major role in the new _Star Trek_ movie. A serious chance of acting alongside Zachary Quinto (and God knows, she's been in love with him ever since she first saw him in _Heroes_ – something to do with the eyebrows), and maybe even Leonard Nimoy.

Sheldon is going to flip out.

She tells Leonard first, and watches his face morph from shocked into excited and then into concerned. He reaches out to touch her arm, tells her that it's okay if she doesn't get the part, that the call back was an achievement in itself, that he believes in her. It doesn't feellike he believes in her, but she smiles anyway and kisses him on the cheek, because he's trying, at least.

When she tells Sheldon, his eye twitches. He insists that she _has_ to get the part. He must meet Leonard Nimoy, restraining order or no, and besides, he has some serious qualms about the alternate timeline that showed up in the most recent movie and he would very much like to speak to the writers about it.

When Penny leaves, Leonard allows himself to feel that first stab of worry. Since Priya left, he's been allowing his old feelings for Penny to renew themselves, and he feels like – it feels ridiculous to admit it, but he feels like they _will _end up together, given the chance, like they belong together or something. And if Penny lands a major part in _Star Trek_, well, she's going to be the object of every nerdy guy's desire, and what does he have over any of them?

Of course he wants her to be successful, of course he does, but he doesn't want to lose_ his_ Penny, either.

When he voices his concerns to Sheldon, the taller man brushes them off.

"The more pressing matter, Leonard, is that Penny is auditioning for the role of a new character. They are writing in a _new character_. I'm aware that this is an alternate timeline, but really, this is a very troubling divergence from canon…"

Leonard lets him talk.

XXX

This time, she is in a notably smaller room, with far fewer editions of herself.

They all look nervous. They're all batting through scripts, engaging in some last minute prep work, but Penny's ready. She's got this. She's been running lines with Howard, Raj occasionally whispering feedback into the engineer's ear. Having Bernadette sitting next to her is making her feel better too, and when her name is called this time, the smaller blonde offers an encouraging smile, a genuine _good luck_.

She thinks it goes well, and when she's done she goes out to dinner with Bernadette and the guys, and they laugh and toast her success.

It's a few weeks later that Leonard is awoken one morning by high-pitched squealing coming from 4B, and he knows Penny has the part.


	2. 1:1

_Hello! So, gosh, it's been a while. I can only apologise. I have exams incredibly, terrifyingly soon. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Scottish exam system. Have you ever been kicked in the throat? I have, and it's not very pleasant, and exams here are a bit like that. _

_But anyway…_

**The Cult Fame Variation: Part One**

Subsection 1

Penny wakes up feeling _weird_.

It's not so much an out-of-body experience, she's not floating near the ceiling looking down at herself or anything, its more like her mind and body belong to two different people. Like she's been possessing a stranger for years and only just noticed.

She was probably still a teenager the last time she woke up without her mind immediately kicking into gear and then working crazily – _have to get ready for work audition prep there's no food in my kitchen god my life is going nowhere late for work _– and now it feels strange just to lie in bed and look at the ceiling. Filming doesn't start for another three weeks. She's gone through the script enough times that she already has most of her lines ingrained into her long-term memory. And last night, she finished up her last shift at the Cheesecake Factory.

She'd shaken her manager's hand, picked up her final pay check, pocketed the last of her tips, hugged a sentimental Bernadette in the darkening parking lot. But after the smaller blonde had gone, she just lingered next to her car for a few minutes and felt a strange kind of happiness – not only because it was the last time she'd feel that burn in her feet and the back of her thighs, but because she felt like she was standing on the edge of some great precipice with no way to go backwards, only able to go on, to throw herself over the edge and see what happened. Only able to trust the unknown.

She'd driven home smiling like an idiot.

Penny sighs and pulls herself out of bed. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror is tired and big-eyed and _morning_. Coffee. Yes. A search of her cupboards proves fruitless, so she grabs a mug and shuffles blearily across to 4A.

Sheldon is Saturday-morning-typical. He's in his spot, in his strangely un-crumpled plaid pyjamas, with a bowl of cereal in his lap, watching Doctor Who. If Penny's honest though, her scrounging for coffee is equally as typical as any of Sheldon's neurotic behaviours.

"Morning Sheldon."

He sighs. Pauses the TV.

"I sense you're going to engage me in conversation. Please keep it brief, the Doctor is about to foil the Dalek invasion."

"You've seen all those episodes a million times, Sheldon."

"This is not an episode, it's a made-for-TV movie that first aired in 1966 and this is my first time watching it."

"Okay, we don't have to _converse_. Watch your movie."

He does, and Penny makes her coffee to the sound of fuzzy English accents and nightmare-inducing sixties sound effects. With nothing better to do, she sits down to watch the end, sitting at the opposite end of the couch from the physicist, her feet propped up between them. This Doctor is much older than the ones she's used to seeing when she watches the show with the guys; less attractive, too, but then any Doctor Who actor is unattractive compared to David Tenant and his adorable accent. She watches Sheldon watch the movie, and finds herself wondering what he'll say when he sees _her _movie. She's not a main character, but she is a major character – a young engineer, fresh out of Starfleet Academy, and all-round useless. Scotty takes her under his wing, so to speak (and she's really excited about that, she's loved Simon Pegg since Leonard forced her to watch _Shaun of the Dead _last year) and she ends up saving the ship from disaster, and there's this sort-of romance with Spock – Sheldon will probably be incensed, but really, _incensed _is kind of Sheldon's natural state anyway.

The credits roll. Sheldon gets up to wash out his cereal bowl.

"Any fun plans for today?" Penny regrets asking almost as soon as the words are out of her mouth. He rounds on her, some kind of hideous revelation, like an overweight politician has just peeled off his skin and revealed himself to be a slitheen.

"Today is Free Comic Book Day."

Penny blinks. Is she supposed to know what that is? Are all comic books free today, or just some? At Stuart's store – or everywhere? These are the questions she _wants _to ask. Instead:

"So you're going to the comic book store?"

"Well what _else _would we do on free comic book day, Penny?"

At that moment, Leonard shuffles in; as ever he is wearing his godawful robe.

"I'll come with you," Penny shrugs at Sheldon, "it's not like I have anything better to do today."

"Are you talking about free comic book day?" That's Leonard, one eyebrow raised unsubtly in confusion. "You _want_ to go to the comic book store?"

"Yeah, sure." Penny's raised eyebrow is anything but subtle: it's confrontational, a challenge. "Just let me go change."

She takes her coffee mug and goes before either of them can say anything. She's determined to go out and _do something_, even if it's trailing round Stuart's store with its weird smell and creepy clientele. Sitting in her apartment all day, shopping online, reading the script for the thousandth time – no, no, her life doesn't just pause. It can't.

She drops her mug into the sink to soak, ambles into her bedroom. It's a particularly hot day outside, the kind of day that calls for shorts and a cute shirt. Well hell, if she's going to the comic book store she may as well look the part. She pairs her denim shorts with one of Leonard's old Star Wars t-shirts that's been kicking around the back of her wardrobe for a year and a half. It's way too big for her, but she tucks it in and the final effect looks pretty good, like, nerd girl chic.

Across the hall, Leonard turns to look at Sheldon, his eyes all questions. Sheldon is oblivious. Of course.

"Why would she want to go to the comic book store?"

Sheldon sighs. Turns back to the sink, focusing on washing out the bowl.

"I don't know, Leonard, nor do I find it a particularly intriguing question."

A moment's silence, then:

"Do you think she's back together with Stuart?"

He hasn't heard anything, but then, you can never really be sure. Sheldon throws him a scowl. He really doesn't care at all. Leonard wonders, not for the first time, what that's like – not being bothered by what other people say or do or who they date.

He leaves his oddity of a roommate to his dishes, and once he's changed and mentally prepared himself for the crowds that are synonymous with free comic book day, he texts Howard, who informs him that he and Raj have already left and will meet them at Stuart's store. Grabbing his messenger bag, Leonard emerges into the living room. Penny and Sheldon are waiting by the door.

Well. He doesn't need to worry about her being back with Stuart.

She's wearing one of his old t-shirts. One of _his _shirts. What could that mean? Maybe – maybe – she wants to go to free comic book day…because of him? Maybe he has a shot. Maybe he's finally caught a break.

"Leonard, not to alarm you, but by my calculations and traffic time estimates-,"

"We're leaving, Sheldon. We're going right now."

"But I'm saying that we _should_ have gone five-,"

"Unless you've secretly invented a time machine, there's nothing we can do about it."

The three of them tumble down the stairs, Leonard cautiously optimistic, Penny a little queasy for reasons she can't quite fathom, and Sheldon, as ever, completely oblivious.


End file.
